I make most of my workbenches 38-42" high depending on what I am doing at that "station".

 

Frederic, I road down to Kennesaw today to the Harbour Freight Store and looked at that mill. I liked the way it looks, that may be the way I go. How accurate is the controls? I noticed they were in .001 increments. Does it hold decent tolerences? Is there any way to square up the head like setting up a Bridgeport? Also is there a lock on the Y axis? I didnt see one, all I saw was a table lock for the X axis.

 

If you buy a full size milling machine I have some suggestions for you. If you don't have a lot of experience with these types of machines take someone with you who does. I am a machinist and can tell you from experience that, even though a machine may have a nice paint job or look brand new, it has probably been "beat on" pretty hard, especially if it is an older machine. If you go back as far as the belt drive machines you may be better off. The older belt drive machines can't take as much abuse as a gear driven machine because the belt will brake. But with the belt drive machines you are somewhat limited in RPM selection. There are several diffrent types of Bridgeport style mills. Look into Kent, Sharp, and Sport brand machines. They don't say Bridgeport but can do the same work without the name. They might even be a little more wallet friendly. Enco machines can also be decent mills if you take care of them.

Hope this helps a little.

 

There are locks for all three axis. Two for X-axis on the front just below the Y movement handle. The Y axis locks are on the right side of the machine below the table. The Z-axis one is a chrome lever on the left side of the headstock just below the spring cover that pulls the spindle up when you loosen things.

The headstock is mounted on a heavy post, but to square it you have to shim it to change the angle. When you buy the machine, you get a set of papers with poorly written numbers indicating the tolerances that particular machine has. My headstock is "off square" by 0.0008" according to the paperwork in the X directly, and 0.0003" in the y direction. These measurements were taken before crating, and shipping to the USA, and before Harbor Freight forklifted the thing around warehouses, trucks, the local store, and eventually into the back of my F350.

So who knows

When I unpacked the machine and set it up on the optional stand, I couldn't move any of the axis at all. The machine was frozen stuck, and after loosening the locks on the jibs I got it to move "barely", and fully removed the XY table off the base, to clean off the shipping grease with is a somewhat oily, but very dusty type of grease which definately protected the dovetail surfaces from rust while in transport from China to USA. Unfortunately, this stuff doesn't come off easily and I had to use about 50 rolls of paper towels and several old toothbrushes and a bucket of kerosene to get it all off, then oil everything liberally. Okay, maybe it was 10 rolls of paper towels

My Z-axis is in 0.001 increments. My X and Y-axis are in 0.002 increments per line. Easy enough to set between two lines however for a 0.001 skim. Just have to look closely and move the dial slowly.

My machine came with backlash measurements on the aforementioned paper, but they were all 4-decimal numbers with three leading zeros so it's fairly minimal. Obviously as I use the machine more and more that will increase as always is the case and there are ways around that as with any machine that acquires some backlash. The bridgeport I regularly "borrowed" before I got my own machine has more backlash in the X axis than there are corrupt politicians on the earth. And that was usable.

I can't really address your concern about repeatability, because I've not made the same part twice yet. However, it's milled very happily and I've been pleased with the outcome on the various things I've milled thus far. My friend who asked me to deck his buick 300 heads was also very pleased... zero leaks between the heads and the blocks and no "goo" was used - just copper head gaskets and torqued down.

BTW, before I bought this machine, I looked at about 10-12 used bridgeports. All of them were 20+ years old, and had lots of issues. The worst one had so much wear on the bottom of the x-y table that the table actually LOWERED when it was centered, and lifted up when you rotated the X-axis crank to move the table to the extreme. The lift was almost 0.1" ! ! !

Another one I looked at actually didnt have much backlash at all, felt very good and my dial indictor told me the table movement was very stable. I just didn't like the huge-**** crack in the headstock. I imagine that could have been repaired but welding cast iron is not my thing and having a large machine with high speed things spinning around with a 10" crack in the head worried me.

Shops that sell off their old bridgeports tend to really use them. While there are obvious advantages to purchasing a used bridgeport over an import mill, I decided for my needs this was much more than I needed, and by purchasing new at least I'd start off with clean movement, very little if any backlash, and since I don't mill every day the machine will last many, many years.

Like I said earlier, like most machinery I own, it will acquire much more surface rust in my garage than backlash over a decade

I don't know where you're located, but if you're near NJ you're welcomed to try my machine if you want.

Also, it's pre-wired for 120V with a 3-prong plug. Not that big of a deal but I did like turning it on 30 seconds after I spent 5-6 hours cleaning off the shipping grease.

 

Steam cleaners, hot soapy water at the car wash, and mineral spirits are the best bets for removing cosmoline which is probably what was covering the imported machine. Cosmoline is hard to come by nowadays tho for "civilians" but it still has to be available as a oil byproduct.

Cosmoline is available here:
http://www.goodson.com/

Something similar has to be available locally.

 

Frederic, Thanks for the info. It would be a little fer from NW GA to come to NJ for a test drive, but I appreciate the offer. I close on my loan on Fri. morning to build my shop. I will have to see whats left after the contractors get through with me. I am seriously considering this machine. I was looking at a Grizzly Industrial catalog and they have one that is identical. I think it is the same machine with there stickers on it, but it is about $125.00 higher plus shipping. Again thanks for the info. you have been a big help.

 

happy to help.

one feature i wish it had was tilt-head, to make v-grooves. instead, one has to vice the work at an angle using angle blocks as a guide. other than that it's the perfect home machine.

i'm slowly converting mine to cnc.

 

well, if you want to come up for the test drive of the miller on June 30th, we are having a little G2G, and you would be able to kill 2 chevys with one boulder.

 

Real tempting but I'll have to killem locally, and I have just the thing to do it with (check out my gallery).